LGR Oddware - Danmere Backer VHS Hard Drive Backup System
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it whenever data-on-video-tape or YouTube-as-storage schemes come up, as the real precedent for storing digital data on VHS.
What it is
LGR reviews the Danmere Backer16, a 1996 backup system that stored a PC's data on ordinary VHS tapes through a VCR. He shows the hardware and software on Windows 3.1 and 95.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2018 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Cites pronoiac · 2018-11 · on “Storing data on videotape (1975)”
What the VHS backups would look like if you watched them: Amiga Video Backup System: [LINK] Danmere Backer: [this video]
Cites anfractuosity · 2019-01 · on “Txqr: Transfer data via animated QR codes”
Reminds me of Backer32, a piece of hardware that stored data on VHS tapes as black and white squares. [this video]
Cites kalleboo · 2019-05 · on “Unlimited Google Drive storage by splitting binary files into base64”
You just need enough redundancy/error correction. Back in the day there were systems to back up to VHS tapes and those were way more lossy than YouTube [this video]
Cites mrguyorama · 2019-10 · on “The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks”
[this video] NTSC video signals offer a lot of bandwidth but very very few promises about the quality of the reproduction of the stored waveform
Cites ajsnigrutin · 2021-08 · on “Tapedeck.org”
Not sure about audio tapes, but video tapes could hold a lot of data... there was even a D-VHS standard: [LINK] - 50 gigs also some standards worked with normal tapes: [this video] (1.5gig)
Cites gattilorenz · 2022-05 · on “YouTubeDrive: Store files as YouTube videos”
Yes! There were many such systems, LGR made a video for one of them, also showing the interface (as in: hardware and GUI) for the backup: [this video]
Cites Bluecobra · 2022-12 · on “VHS-Decode – Software defined VHS decoder”
There was also a hokey VHS tape backup card for the PC around the same time that used standard VHS tapes: [this video]
Cites LocalH · 2023-02 · on “Store files inside of YouTube videos”
Literally the modern equivalent of the old video-based backup systems. I remember they existed for both the PC and the Amiga. You would load a blank VHS tape into a VCR, connect the output of the computer to that VCR's input, and then tell the program which data you'd like to backup to the tape. It would generate this flashing "mess" of black and white pixels that you'd record to the tape. To restore, you'd connect the VCR output to a little box that came with the product, it would convert the black and white data in the video signal to a data stream that the program would use to restore your data. A portion of the signal would be used for timing, metadata and error correction, so the progra